Chương 46: Chapter 45

The following morning at breakfast, Etta chose to sit next to me. Our late night talk and agreement to keep each other's secrets had clearly solidified our friendship in a way our rivalry never had. We whispered over eggs and warm bread while I noticed our mothers looking on with amused smiles and glances at each other that might as well have been entire conversations. I didn't let their assumptions bother me. After breakfast, Etta and I disappeared back upstairs to my room.

Normally, I would have gone outside and practised running on the obstacle course, but the pouring rain was so heavy it felt like a blanket over the world. A very cold, wet blanket. I didn't need to be warned about the dangers of training in that weather. Winter was approaching, and the air had cooled enough that if I didn't catch a cold running about outside it would have been a miracle.

Instead, the pair of us, thick as thieves, retired to my room where I started doing bodyweight and balancing exercises to continue work on at least some of my Paths. Etta made herself comfortable in the same place she had the night before, sitting on top of the chest that housed my clothes. I kept an eye on her as she looked out the window at the curtain of water and the barely visible grey sky it was hiding.

We were both quiet at first, me huffing as I performed push ups with my feet raised off the floor and Etta mostly ignoring me for the rain, so I was a little surprised when she spoke without turning towards me.

"Why don't we play games anymore? Like the ones you used to make up?" She didn't sound accusatory or whiny, just curious, maybe even confused. I debated lying once more, but after getting up and checking no one was listening outside my door, I returned to my exercises and was honest with her. Not because I thought she deserved honesty, but because it was nice to have a friend that knew a little about me and wasn't Mum or Gramps.

"I finished the Paths that I based those games around," I muttered as I started a set of sit ups.

"What Paths were they?" Etta asked, turning to look at me as I contracted my core. Once more, I debated how much to share. I definitely wasn't going to mention the Path of Stealth. A kid getting the Path of Sneaking and Hiding seemed reasonable. Completing an Advanced Path, well, even if Etta didn't know what that was, what would happen if she asked someone like her dad? I trusted her to try and keep my secrets, but at the end of the day she was still a five year old and mistakes were bound to happen.

"Sneaking," I answered, watching my Path of Deception tick up in the background.

"Any others?"

"Crawling and Walking," I admitted. Three seemed like a good enough number and was about at the limit of what I was willing to share.

"What about you?"

"I don't have any completed Paths," Etta admitted before smiling brightly.

"Could you come up with a new game for a Path for us to work on together?" It was possible, I supposed. It really depended on if there was any overlap between the Paths we had.

"What Paths are you working on?" I watched as Etta focused on the air in front of her, clearly calling up her own Status.

"Umm, Walking, Running, Balance, Swordplay, Aethersensing, Language, Reading and Writing Helenian, Basic Numeracy… and the one I am not supposed to talk about."

"Arman Legacy," I said, since I already knew the Path's name from my eavesdropping.

"It's a Bloodline Path, right? How do you even advance those?" Etta unsurprisingly shrugged in response.

"Dad made me drink this dark red liquid from one of Magatha's potion bottles. That made it progress to Tier two. He said he didn't have the ingredients for another one though, then he got all thoughtful, and I heard him arguing quietly with Mum that night about trying to get some more but it being dangerous. I don't want him to be in danger…" I considered the information for a few seconds.

It sounded like Bloodline Paths progressed very differently to other Paths, though maybe I was just wrong and hadn't acquired an abnormal Path by now. Then I realised I had in fact just such a Path, glancing at my own Status and the small number of steps on my Path of Soulstealing.

"I'm sure your dad will be careful," I said placatingly.

"As for a game though… I suppose I could come up with something. Will need your help though, and maybe Grandma Lucille." Etta instantly brightened up, climbing off my chest of clothes with an excited look on her face.

"What are we doing?"

"We… are going to be pirates!" I said in lieu of an explanation. It took us over an hour to set everything up, but by the time we were done the common room had been transformed from a collection of tables and chairs into a few different 'boats' with pathways between them made from threads of rope. Grandma Lucille had come through for us, providing the rope course we could use to traverse the room.

She even agreed to be a Pirate Queen in our game as Etta and I practised both our Paths of Balance and Swordplay as we swashbuckled our way across the room, fighting phantom opponents as much as each other. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. That night, Etta slept far more soundly and seemed a little less worried about George and Gramps. The relief lasted for that single night and no more.

The next few days blurred by as though a gloom had settled over everyone in the outpost that couldn't be relieved. I could tell we were all worried about Gramps, George, and to a lesser extent Hurin. The forester received less of everyone's concern due to simply due to his lack of presence — the price of being a hermit I decided.

Grandma Lucille tried to deliver an aethersensing lesson each day for Etta and I, but with a Minor Aether Core and no Aether Manipulation Attribute, the lessons were short and consisted of the older woman creating moving threads with a weaving based Skill. Suffice to say Etta and I both struggled to get much out of the lessons. We played 'pirates' a little but even that seemed to lose its charm as we waited for our parental figures to return.

Instead, Etta spent more time receiving reading and writing lessons from my mum while I threw myself into my Path of Running with the enthusiasm of a dog chasing a bone. Multiple times a day, I would run till I dropped, my practise only broken by hatchet lessons with Griselda in the afternoon. After the fourth day passed with no sign of Gramps, my worry went up a notch. After all, that was the earliest they might have returned. On the fifth day, I could tell my mother was getting fidgety.

The sixth day saw our routine broken up slightly as after over a week away, the prospectors finally returned. The breakfast they ordered was paid for with a couple of small silver coins which I later learned they had gotten from the Kellins' trading post. The rumour floating around our small community was that the prospectors had found a small silver vein and brought in a decent haul of ore.

The source of the rumour was Martin who had readily agreed to smelt the ore for a cut of the profits, which I suppose made it less of a rumour and more of a fact. Without Gramps present, I half expected the prospectors to cause problems, so I was pretty surprised when they shovelled down their food, paid for some jerky and other rations that Mum was able to throw together, and then left as quickly as they came, heading back to their impromptu mine with the sort of swagger of the nouveau rich.

Maybe the silver vein they had discovered was bigger than they let on? I didn't know and as much as I would've liked to find out, there was no way Mother would've let me out of her sight. That was completely ignoring the dangers of a four-year-old stumbling around the wild Horndale Mountains on his own. With the distraction of the prospectors gone and the sun beginning its slow decline towards the horizon, I once more found myself facing Griselda.

The feeling of the smooth wood of the hatchet in my hand was both comforting and daunting, and I resolved that today would be the day that I would make Griselda take me seriously. From her garden, my mother watched the pair of us, dirt on her hands and concern in her eyes as she looked at the naked steel in my hand from between the creeping vines and bushes. I didn't know how Griselda had convinced my mother to let me use an actual hatchet but the half-orc woman had.

Griselda, however, held only a small wooden stick with a bulbous notch at the end that made it look more like a hammer than a hatchet.

"Come on then," Griselda said, waving to me with her wooden club as she set her feet. I moved forward, swinging the small hatchet at Griselda's leg. She blocked with her club, trying to slide the haft along my own and down towards my fingers. I immediately disengaged like she had taught me, matching her sliding action before rotating the hatchet around for another attack. Again, she blocked as we settled into a rhythm of wood clacking against wood.

Any time I overextended she would gently rap my fingers with the haft of her hatchet. We were barely halfway through the lesson and they were already bruising. I could see that mother wanted to say something, her mouth opening to ask if I was okay, but every time I continued as though I was fine, she held herself back. I wasn't fine though. I was worried about Gramps. But the pain of rapped knuckles along with my weary muscles was an excellent distraction from those feelings.

Plus, I was so close to gaining the fourth Tier in the Path of Hatchets, and I wanted to make sure I had it before Gramps returned. Because he would definitely return. We continued for another hour, going back and forth around my improved obstacle course. The clacking of our sparring echoed across the stony ground. As we passed the garden again, the crowd watching had grown from just my mother to everyone staying at the outpost.

I swung my attack like any other, but as Griselda blocked it I reacted by pulling my hatchet down, trying to catch her club with the metal blade and knock it from her hands. I of course failed in the contest of strength, but the new movement was enough for me to gain a step in my Path of Hatchets. I disengaged to look at the notification. You have advanced the Tier of your Path!

Path of Hatchets IV (100/100) Reward: 1 Strength I cheered internally but kept my joy from my face as not everyone knew I had access to my Status. The additional Strength went well with the additional Stamina I had gotten from the third tier of the Path.

"Had enough for the day?" Griselda asked, lowering her club. I looked down at my red and aching knuckles and gave a small nod. The pain was a reminder of the cost of progress, but as long as my numbers kept going up I was more than willing to suffer.

"Thanks, Griselda," I said as we walked back towards the outpost. The half-orc just grunted her acknowledgement. By unspoken agreement, everyone decided we should have an early dinner in the backyard. We were halfway through carrying out the chairs and tables from the common room when a shout went up from Etta's mum. I ran out the back to see Kaylee sprinting across the open expanse towards the tree line where three figures stumbled across the rocky ground.

Before I had even realised I was doing it, I was running in Kaylee's wake, Etta not far behind me. I stumbled more than once as I ran towards Gramps, the uneven ground full of small divots that caught my feet in the darkness but I charged on, ignoring the tears in my eyes that I had held down for days. The old codger had made it home!